First Step

Every single time I sit down to search for jobs I end up here; writing the first sentence of a blog. I swim through endless administration jobs, “Be your own boss!”, I read one article about how someone somewhere managed to change their lives and can now do something they love or have always wanted to do full-time and then I’m here.

Sometimes I get as far as becoming a member on WordPress, even as far as creating a title for my blog but then, about two paragraphs down into my first post while I’m reeling off all of my thoughts, feelings, notions, anecdotes and tales of the world I stop, and I hit backspace, frantically. As I complete each step of the process to getting started on a blog I have got started on 1…2…20 times before, I get more and more full of anxiety. What if everyone hates it? What if the people I know who happen upon this laugh at me? What if my mum judges me?

I feel like a fraud.

What qualifications or experiences have I got to share with the world that are unique or different? I am no expert on anything. I worry that no one will agree with me. What if I have an unpopular opinion I can’t defend better than someone else can argue? We all want to be special, but most of us (me) want to do it by staying in line or keeping quiet and not really making too much of a fuss. We want to be individual and unique just like everyone else that whenever we do step out of the norm we feel weird and vulnerable. Like someone might laugh at us.

This is definitely where I get to.

For me it’s with writing, perhaps for you it’s with wanting to post that picture of your abs, or putting on some blue eyeshadow or maybe you’re Billy Elliot and you just want to dance.

More and more recently, I’ve been thinking about the most influential people in the world and when it comes to writing their biographies or autobiographies, were they always doing influential, out of the box, different things? ‘Jimmy was selling shoes since he was born and now he’s Jimmy Choo’. Or one day did they just wake up and start? If I’m ever going to be one of those people I need to wake up and start because thus far, it’s been a lot of ice cream, complaining and wondering. If we look in the mirror and think we could be doing more than this, better than this, different than this, then why are we still looking at the bloody mirror? Why aren’t we doing it? Why are we so scared? I feel this way about meeting my neighbours, getting in shape, having a career and a million other things except I spend so long feeling this way or thinking this way and not actually doing it, that time is ticking by.

I recently moved abroad. I’m a Brit living in Downtown Toronto and everyday I’m here it becomes clearer and clearer that nobody is going to come and knock on my door and say ‘Lorna – you are just the person we’ve been looking for, come and change the world’. Or, if you do this one job for now then one day you won’t have to do it because everything’ll work out and you’ll be in a dream job. (The inconvenient truth there is that I need a job to pay my bills like the rest of you, but still) Nope. That’s not going to happen either. If I sit in my flat I’ll make friends here, right? Wrong! So unbelievably wrong, but it’s what I’ve been doing.

But I’m not doing it anymore. I’m posting this blog-in-the-making. I’m getting in shape, hell I might even go and meet my neighbours. I begin this blog by telling you that the musings and writings here aren’t happening because I’m an expert on swimming (or anything), or because I have a message you need to know (you don’t). I don’t really even know what the majority of this content is going to be about. It might be a pile of creative writing, but if you’d like a guide to what might happen here; well, you’re probably looking at a bit of politics, and I’m pretty passionate about education, the gym, films, places to eat, globalisation and really anything else.

Honestly, I feel more nervous about this than I did about moving abroad.

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One thought on “First Step”

Congratulations on your first post. Do not worry, this is your space, be who you want to be, say what you wanna say, just do it responsibly. If the world appreciates, good for them, if not too bad, they are the ones missing out, right? All of us have these self doubts, but that is just part of baring your ideas and musings for scrutiny, in short, it is part of being a human being. So cheers to you friend, for taking the first step into fundom. Your posts are funny and interesting. So, keep posting more.